POLITICS: Bhutto’s Killing May Threaten Pakistan’s Stability

The assassination of Pakistan's opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto threatens to de-stabilise a country which the United States describes as a trusted ally and a frontline fighter in the global war on terrorism.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Gates Led Realist Resurgence in ‘07

2007 will likely go down in U.S. history as the year in which the balance of power in the long-running struggle between hawks and realists in the administration of President George W. Bush shifted decisively in favour of the latter.

RIGHTS-US: Legal Community Condemns Destruction of CIA Tapes

A former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ethics adviser has joined leading members of the U.S. legal community in calling on Congress to investigate the destruction of tape recordings of interrogations carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

RIGHTS-US: Congress Takes Action on Cluster Bombs, Child Soldiers

Human-rights and humanitarian groups are hailing provisions of a major appropriations bill approved by Congress this week that bans the export of most U.S.-made cluster bombs and U.S. military aid for foreign governments that use child soldiers.

POLITICS-SAUDI ARABIA: Iran Polls Better Than U.S.

Although the image of the United States appears to have improved in Saudi Arabia over the past year, the Saudi public’s view of Washington remains largely negative, according to major new poll released here this week by Terror Free Tomorrow (TFT), a Washington, D.C.-based bipartisan group.

POLITICS-US: Congress Clears More Funds for Both War and Relief

Racing to adjourn for the year, the U.S. Congress this week approved a 560- billion-dollar omnibus 2008 appropriation that includes 70 billion dollars more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and sizable increases in development, refugee, and disaster assistance.

POLITICS-US: Bush&#39s New Spin Master a Lame Duck?

As Karen Hughes, the close confidante of President George W. Bush, gives up her mission to improve the U.S. image abroad - amid dedicedly mixed reviews of her performance - her replacement is already facing criticism for his support of the Iraq war and a number of alleged ethical lapses.

CZECH REPUBLIC: US Radar Provokes PR War

The Czech government has begun an 890,000-dollar information campaign supporting the U.S. plan to set up a radar station in the Czech Republic. Opponents of the plan - led by the Social Democrats - want some of that money to fund alternative information campaigns so as to create an actual debate on the issue and prepare the population for the possibility of a referendum.

IRAQ: A Tenuous &#39Peace&#39 in Al-Anbar

A semblance of calm belies an undercurrent of violence, detentions and fear across Iraq’s volatile al-Anbar province.

Q&A: ‘U.S. Politics Turning Communities Against Each Other’

"As long as the U.S. troops stay in Iraq there will be violence," warns Gilbert Achcar, professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

CZECH REPUBLIC: US-Russia At Impasse on Radar

The U.S. proposal to set up an anti-missile defence system in Eastern Europe has drawn the Czech Republic into a high-level diplomatic debate between Moscow and Washington for which they may not be fully prepared.

MIDEAST: Likudnik Hawks Work to Undermine Annapolis

Despite near-universal scepticism about the prospects for launching a serious, new Middle East peace process at next week's Israeli-Palestinian summit in Annapolis, a familiar clutch of neo-conservative hawks close to the Likud Party leader, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, isn't taking any chances.

POLITICS-US: The Nuclear Cowboys

What do the current Pakistani political crisis, Israel's September air strike against Syria, and Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear enrichment all have in common? All three events reflect the aggressive policies adopted by the George W. Bush administration to deal with the growing threat of nuclear proliferation.

POLITICS: Israel’s Syrian Airstrike Was Aimed at Iran

Until late October, the accepted explanation about the Sep. 6 Israeli airstrike in Syria, constructed in a series of press leaks from U.S. officials, was that it was prompted by dramatic satellite intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear facility with help from North Korea.

MIDEAST-US: New Scholars Group Seen as Close to White House

A small group of Middle East and African studies scholars in the United States has announced the creation of a new professional association to change the direction of scholarship in the field.

POLITICS-US: Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/POLITICS-US: Senate Committee Ratifies Law of the Sea Treaty

In a major defeat for far-right Republicans, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday voted 17-4 to ratify the 25-year-old Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), the international accord that sets rules governing most areas of ocean policy, including navigation, over-flights, exploitation of the seabed, conservation and research.

POLITICS-US: For Neocons, Iran War Aim Is Still Regime Change

Vice President Dick Cheney and his neoconservative allies in the George W. Bush administration only began agitating for the use of military force against Iran once they had finally given up the illusion that regime change in Iran would happen without it.

POLITICS-US: Welcome to "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"

Right-wing pundit David Horowitz was in rare form during a tightly controlled "public speech" at the George Washington University on Thursday night, decrying the U.S. academic Left as a hateful "lynch mob" who act as apologists for the impending threat of the "Islamo- fascist" jihad.

POLITICS-US: Will Catholics Lean Right or Left in 08?

Over the past two decades, Catholic voters in the United States - once consistent supporters of the Democratic Party - have been heavily courted by the Republicans.

POLITICS-US: Cheney Raises the Rhetoric Against Iran

In the harshest speech against Iran given by a top George W. Bush administration official to date, Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday warned the Islamic Republic of "serious consequences" if it did not freeze its nuclear programme and accused it of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans".